Automation in the field of surgical treatments has been a growing field in the past decade. Medical robots are being developed to assist with some surgeries, however, known robot systems are extremely expensive and generally cost upwards of $750,000.
Despite the advances in medical robotics, many surgical procedures continue to be performed manually by surgeons and are therefore more time consuming, which is both more expensive, and more susceptible to human error. For example, certain neurosurgeries require a surgeon to access the brain through the temporal bone. Machining an adequate opening through the temporal bone is currently performed manually. Due to the criticality of brain and brain tumor surgeries, it will be appreciated that even a minor mistake on the part of the surgeon can result in severe consequences. The surgical procedure generally entails a craniotomy (removal of bone flap) and machining through the temporal bone. In one example, a channel or hole is created in the temporal bone to access the brain. Surgeons often use pneumatic hand drills at very high rotational speeds to perform the surgery. The surgeon must rely on the information he has from any preoperative images that were taken (such as CT scans) to perform the machining. Thus, the process is highly susceptible to human error.
Furthermore, such temporal bone procedures usually take a long time (three to four hours) to simply drill the hole in the temporal bone. The expense of the surgeon performing the machining for several hours adds to the already high cost of these surgeries. Additionally, having the lesion open for such long time periods makes the patient susceptible to infections that may further complicate health issues.
Thus, there is a need in the art for automated systems and methods for assisting in neurological surgeries and other surgeries that involve machining through bone, tissue, and/or other desired anatomical structures that reduce the overall duration of the surgeries, minimize human error, and minimize overall cost of the surgeries.